Doing African political philosophy from a universalist perspective

There has been a strong impetus to set the definitional parameters of study in African political philosophy and theory. Many scholars advance the idea of a discipline intended to provide lessons that stem from “original” African moral, ideological, and political traditions. Often, these traditions and their ideas are presented as holding categorical moral substance in so far as they are seen to be specific to a culturally essentialist understanding of “Africa.” In turn, an influential part of the literature estimates the normative value of the intellectual ideas and arguments afforded by a varied historical, socio-cultural and economic African geography by the degree to which, in being tethered to a seemingly homogenous, “culturally African” influence, these ideas can be opposed to a “Western” equivalent. In this article, I argue that the effects on the discipline of attending to, and being defined by, this cultural essentialism are at best unclear, at worst detrimental. I aim to contribute to the side of those who advocate a universalist perspective to the study of African political philosophy and thought, and who argue for jettisoning an unhelpful dichotomy between “West” and “African,” in favour of a methodological, conceptual and historical specificity that allows the discipline to be truly useful to itself and to others.     

Can representational trajectory reveal the nature of an internal model of gravity?

The memory for the vanishing location of a horizontally moving target is usually displaced forward in the direction of motion (representational momentum) and downward in the direction of gravity (representational gravity). Moreover, this downward displacement has been shown to increase with time (representational trajectory). However, the degree to which different kinematic events change the temporal profile of these displacements remains to be determined. The present article attempts to fill this gap. In the first experiment, we replicate the finding that representational momentum for downward-moving targets is bigger than for upward motions, showing, moreover, that it increases rapidly during the first 300 ms, stabilizing afterward. This temporal profile, but not the increased error for descending targets, is shown to be disrupted when eye movements are not allowed. In the second experiment, we show that the downward drift with time emerges even for static targets. Finally, in the third experiment, we report an increased error for upward-moving targets, as compared with downward movements, when the display is compatible with a downward ego-motion by including vection cues. Thus, the errors in the direction of gravity are compatible with the perceived event and do not merely reflect a retinotopic bias. Overall, these results provide further evidence for an internal model of gravity in the visual representational system.     

La diferenciación masculino-femenino: Un mito y una realidad

Resumen

El artículo se propone realizar un estudio teórico acerca de las repercusiones psíquicas y sociales de la diferenciación sexual, tomando como marco de referencia la interpretación dada por la perspectiva cognitiva a partir del concepto de «esquema basado en la dicotomía del género».

El enfoque cognitivo destaca la importancia que ejerce la identificación psico-sexual en la adquisición y desarrollo de las ideas de «masculinidad» y «femineidad». Este proceso de partición del mundo en dos clases sexuales diferenciadas ha resultado doblemente pernicioso tanto para varones como para mujeres, empobreciendo, por un lado, el desarrollo global de la personalidad e impidiendo, por otro, el entendimiento entre sus respectivas visiones del mundo.     

Assessing Ego Defense Mechanisms by Questionnaire: Psychometric Properties and Psychopathological Correlates of the Greek Version of the Plutchik's Life Style Index

As is true for those who face death, the trauma of arrest and conviction for a crime and subsequent imprisonment takes the individual through a series of psychological stages, In the offender, these defenses are to some extent prescribed by the culture. The nature of and the person's adaptation to this process has not been previously recognized and argues for an assessment approach that emphasizes developmental rather than static formulations. Examination and treatment implications are discussed.     

Psychopathology, characteristics of violence and dropout in male batterers treatment programs: results of an intervention service

This paper deals with male violence toward female partners and the analysis of some variables related to this aggressive behavior. We study the type of violence perpetrated and some indicators of psychopathology, such as personality disorders, previous psychiatric or psychological care, substance abuse and jealous behavior, among others. In addition, we examine the relationship between these variables and the fact that the men do not complete the treatment program. For this purpose, we employed a sample of 118 men who voluntarily participated in an intervention service, and we carried out an ex post facto analysis. With regard to possible relations of dependence or independence among the variables considered, the results show dependence between the possibility of dropping out of the treatment and the presence of psychological or psychiatric history, and patterns of alcohol consumption and consumption of other drugs. In contrast, the existence of personality disorders, jealous behavior, type of violence used, onset or duration of violent behavior are independent of the possibility of dropping out of the treatment program.     

Psychological care demand in clinical practice: treatment and results

With the aim of describing the usual clinical context as opposed to the academic or research context, the characteristics of patients and psychological treatments applied in a sample of 856 patients from the Clinic of Psychology of the Complutense University is analyzed. The disorders that require attention, the characteristics of the therapists and their interventions are identified. Out of the total patients, 24.3% withdrew from treatment; 68.3% of the patients who started treatment completed it with therapeutic success. 83% of patients were assessed in 4 sessions or fewer (median=4). 75.3% of patients who finished the treatment received 18 or fewer treatment sessions (median=11). The generalization of the results and their implications for professional clinical practice and for training clinical psychologists are discussed.     

Affective responses to abuse in the workplace: The role of hope and affective commitment

Affective responses constitute the mechanism by which abusive supervision received is associated with subordinates’ turnover intentions. Using affective events theory (AET) as a theoretical framework, we suggest that abusive supervision is a contextual event that is associated with subordinates’ affective reactions and corresponding evaluative judgment of their workplace, which ultimately leads to increased turnover intentions, a prominent withdrawal outcome. We examine two affective responses as mediators, hope (a goal-related affective state based on the expectation of positive outcomes) and affective commitment (affect-based evaluation of the organization). Two samples from a field study (n = 209) and an experiment (n = 427) were analyzed using structural equation modeling. Results supported our proposed chain of relationships, suggesting that subordinates are likely to experience decreased hope and affective commitment after having experienced abuse from a supervisor, which subsequently impact their withdrawal intention to leave the organization.     

Extinction-induced "despair" in aged and adult rats: links to neurotrophins in frontal cortex and hippocampus

In the search for animal models of human geriatric depression, we found that operant extinction of escape from water results in the expression of immobility in different age groups, indicative of behavioral "despair", which was also associated with the resistance-to-extinction (RTE) expressed by these animals. With respect to the neurotrophin hypothesis of depression, nerve-growth factor (NGF), brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF) and neurotrophin-3 (NT-3) protein levels in frontal cortex (FC) and hippocampus (HP) were examined and related to behavioral immobility and RTE in the water maze in aged and adult Wistar rats. Age-related increases in levels of NGF were found in HP and of NT-3 in FC. Indices of immobility showed relationships in the aged with NGF and, in adults, with BDNF, pointing to a dissociation of neurotrophic involvement in extinction trial-induced "despair" in aged and adult rats. The present results support the hypothesis, that extinction-induced immobility in the water maze reflects a state akin to behavioral despair and point to age-related differences of neurotrophic involvement in depressive-like symptoms. The concept of extinction-induced behavioral "despair" in the aged subsumes several aspects of human geriatric depression, such as co-morbidity of learning impairment and anxiety, and, thus could represent a useful paradigm to examine the neuronal mechanisms underlying depression, especially in aged rodents.     

When Reminiscence is Harmful: The Relationship Between Self-Negative Reminiscence Functions,Need Satisfaction,and Depressive Symptoms Among Elderly People from Cameroon,the Czech Republic,and Germany

Reminiscence has various functions, not all of which are beneficial for well-being. In particular, self-negative reminiscence functions—boredom reduction, bitterness revival, and intimacy maintenance—have been shown to be associated with reduced well-being. The present paper examines the link between self-negative reminiscence functions and depression in three cultural contexts. We hypothesize that both variables are indirectly linked via satisfaction of basic psychological needs: Self-negative reminiscing is associated with an impairment of need satisfaction which in turn relates to enhanced depressive symptoms. This hypothesis is tested in elderlies from Cameroon, the Czech Republic, and Germany. A total of 637 elderly participants reported on self-negative reminiscing, need satisfaction, and depressive symptoms. Analyses indicate that for boredom reduction and bitterness revival an indirect effect on depression via decreased need satisfaction can be established in all cultural contexts. For intimacy maintenance, a different picture emerges in that in the Czech and the German sample, there was a direct effect on depression but not an indirect one via need satisfaction. Yet, among Cameroonian participants an indirect effect was found, demonstrating that intimacy maintenance was related to decreased depression via enhanced need satisfaction. These results suggest that reminiscence functions may have partly universal, partly culture-specific effects on well-being.